Insomnia
by AdrenalineRush16
Summary: Specs can't sleep, Dutchy can help. A one shot between our two favorite glasses-wearing newsies. NOT SLASH!


Disclaimer: Disney owns Newsies, J.M. Barrie owns Peter Pan, I own.....nothing. :(

A/N: Okay, so Dutchy and Specs are two of my favorite newsies (well, I love them all) so I finally got around to writing a one shot with the pair of them. :D Gotta love 'em. This is short, but I hope you like it anyway. R&R please!

Warning: Some parts are kind of touchy-feely-happy but please don't think it's slash, it's merely brotherly love. Got it? This is NOT slash. Look at the summary.

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**Insomnia**

_I was in a pasture. Weird, I'm usually a city guy. I looked around me and then saw this beautiful girl in a long flowing skirt running on the other side of the meadow. She smiled and beckoned me to come to her. I started running, the grass swishing through my legs. It felt so warm and soft. She was getting closer and closer, smiling and holding out her hand to me. I was just about to reach and then—_

I shot awake, panting, and then looked around. I was still in the Lodging House, darn. Not that I'm much of country person anyway, that's Jake's forte. But still, that girl was pretty and the grass was soft and-

Hold onto yourself Specs, it was only a dream.

I shook myself and all of a sudden shivered. That was the really nice part of my dream, it was warm. Not that it was so weird to be cold; I had a bottom bunk and was one of the farthest away from the vent that brings the heat up from the fire downstairs.

I shivered again; my teeth were starting to chatter. Even with two pairs of socks on, my feet were blocks of ice. I grabbed my coat from under my bed and wrapped it around me. It was freezing in here.

I looked around again and realized that it was almost dead silent in the room, which is strange; usually there's a lot of snoring going on and the occasional sound of tears. It was like the cold had muffled all sound. I saw some fat snowflakes drifting by the window. I sighed and lay back down, curling into a ball to try and warm me up a little.

Twenty minutes later, I was still freezing. I sighed again and reached under my mattress and fished out a book. Then I grabbed my blanket and glasses, and then hurried downstairs.

On cold nights like this, Kloppman leaves the fire going all night. I decided to head down to the living room (well, our living room is kind of a mess, but it's where the fireplace is, and a couch, so it's pretty comfy) and curl up in front of the fire, maybe read a little bit.

I stopped short when I heard the crackling of the fire. It was loud and smelled pretty strong. Nothing was burning was it? I hurried into the living room and stopped as I saw Dutchy, already under a blanket on the sofa. He opened one eye and squinted. Then he smiled.

"Heya Specs," he said sleepily.

"Couldn't sleep either?" I asked, going to sit by him. He sat up and made room for me as I went under his blanket and spread mine around us.

Dutch shook his head. "Nah, too cold."

"Me too," I agreed, setting my book on the table. "I was hoping that I'd fall asleep reading,"

"Yeah, I couldn't find my glasses, so I decided to just sit in front of the fire," Dutchy said to me.

I noticed he had added a couple logs to the fire and the flames were crackling merrily. I looked at Dutchy from out of the corner of my eye. He looked different without his glasses on. You could see his eyes a lot better. They were a bright sky blue.

Dutchy squinted again and looked over my shoulder. "Whatcha readin' now?"

"Peter Pan," I answered, flipping through the worn pages.

Dutchy yawned. "That was about some kid who could fly right?"

I smiled. "Yeah Dutch, the flying kid."

"Thought so," Dutchy said, resting his head on my shoulder. "Could you read some to me? I think I'll fall asleep if it's quiet again."

One thing that makes Dutchy and I total opposites are our sleeping habits. I always sleep on my back, no exceptions, and I have to have background noises going on when I sleep; they relax me. Dutchy, on the other hand, sleeps curled up in a tight ball and likes to have it dead-silent when he sleeps. (That's pretty hard with all the snoring and mumbling going on at night, but I guess he means relatively quiet)

I smiled. "Sure." I opened the book at a random spot and started reading. Peter Pan was the first book that I ever bought and I've read it many times. For me, it's one of those books that I've read so often that I can practically start anywhere and be happy. I opened to the part describing Mermaid Lagoon; I've always loved that passage. It makes me want to snuggle under my covers and sleep the day away.

"_If you shut your eyes and are a lucky one, you may see at times a shapeless pool of lovely pale colors suspended in the darkness; then if you squeeze your eyes tighter, the pool begins to take shape, and the colors become so vivid that with another squeeze they must go on fire. But just before they go on fire you see the lagoon. This is the nearest you ever get to it on the mainland, just one heavenly moment; if there could be two moments you might see the surf and hear the mermaids singing."_

I sighed happily and stopped for a moment. I remember as a kid, trying to do that, squeezing my eyes shut and hoping that I might see a lagoon full of mermaids. I still do at times, but I'd never tell anyone.

"Why'd you stop Specs?" Dutchy's voice brought me out of my reverie.

"Oh, sorry," I said, stifling a jaw-splitting yawn.

"Hand me that will ya?" Dutchy took the book out of my lap as I covered my yawning mouth. Dutchy held the book close to the firelight.

"Whatcha doin'?" I asked, now the sleepy one.

"You need your rest," Dutchy said to me calmly. "Now shut your eyes." He pulled off my glasses before I could do anything and pushed my head down onto one of the pillows.

"Dutch, give me my glasses," I told him, trying to swallow another yawn and grab my glasses at the same time.

"You can't read if you don't have your glasses," Dutchy said to me. (It was true. I'm far-sighted. Unfortunately, Dutchy is near-sighted, so he can read whenever he wants to) "So you're going to go to sleep."

"Dutchy—," I began.

"I get to read now, so shut up," he said sternly.

_"[Wendy] was often at the lagoon, however, on sunny days after rain, when the mermaids come up in extraordinary numbers to play with their bubbles. The bubbles of many colors made in rainbow water they treat as balls, hitting them gaily from one to another with their tails, and trying to keep them in the rainbow till they burst. The goals are at each end of the rainbow, and the keepers only are allowed to use their hands. Sometimes a dozen of these games will be going on in the lagoon at a time, and it is quite a pretty sight."_

Dutchy's soft voice was slowly winding a spell around me and the warmth of the fire dulled my senses. It wasn't long before I was dreaming again, with the same girl, except flying high in the air. It was a magnificent flight…

In the morning, when I woke up, it was no surprise to see Dutchy's head on my hip and he was still clutching Peter Pan and my glasses.

_Fin…

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_A/N: The boys are a little OOC at the end, I realize that. Please no flames! ;) I hope you guys liked this, I figure Dutchy and Specs deserve a no-slash friendship fic. :D

Thanks for reading!

AdrenalineRush16

P.S. Thanks to my beta Laelyn for helping me with this! You're the best! :)


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